Stylos is the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Reformed Baptist Pastor in North Garden, Virginia. The title "Stylos" is the Greek word for pillar. In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul urges his readers to consider "how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (stylos) and ground of the truth."

Monday, July 14, 2014

Reflections on Luke 22:21: Did Judas partake of the first Lord's Supper?

Note: Here are some notes from last Sunday morning's sermon from Luke 22:21-30, reflecting especially on the question raised by v.
21 as to whether Judas partook of the first Lord’s Supper and, if so, what the
implications might be from this.

“But, behold, the hand
of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Luke 22:21).

There is a debate about the chronology (the order of events
in time) of what is described here.
Namely: Was Judas the betrayer
there at the table not only during the Last Supper (the Passover meal) but also
at the first Lord’s Supper, as v. 21 may imply (coming just after Luke’s
description of Jesus’ institution of this new covenant meal in vv. 19-20)?

Both Matthew (26:19-25) and Mark (14:17-21) record that Jesus
predicted the betrayal of one of the twelve during the Passover meal (and
before the Lord’s Supper).

We can add to this the testimony of John which does not
record the Lord’s Supper but does record this about Judas’ betrayal:

John 13:26 Jesus answered, He
it is, to whom I shall give a sop [piece of bread], when I have dipped it.
And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son
of Simon. 27 And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto
him, That thou doest, do quickly. 28 Now no man at the table knew for what
intent he spake this unto him. 29 For some of them thought, because
Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that
we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the
poor. 30 He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was
night.

The
question is whether Judas’ “going out” was after the Passover meal or after the
Lord’s Supper.

We
must take Luke’s chronology seriously, since at the beginning of his Gospel he
specifically says that he writes “all things from the very first … in order”
(Luke 1:3).

If
Judas were there, this means that even at the very first Lord’s Supper a false
professor was present. Even when our
Lord was there physically at the head of the table, there was an unregenerate
man present who ate and drank “unworthily” (1 Cor 11:29).

This
reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares where the tare are allowed to grow among the
wheat till the harvest when the weeds are separated from the wheat (Matt
13:24-30, 36-43). It is a reminder that
in this age, though we should seek a pure and regenerate church, and though
we should, for example, fence the table, we will not achieve absolute purity as
the church militant here on earth. That
will not come till we are the church triumphant in heaven.

2 comments:

Thanks for the catch. Corrected. I saw the error in my manuscript when preaching yesterday and corrected it verbally in the message--after an internal smile--but forgot to edit it for this post. Glad you're still willing to read after a drought of posts the last few weeks.